In this Q&A with the history department, Lambe delves into her inspiration for writing the book, the process of sifting through archival material, and what she hopes readers will take away from her latest work.
Q: What inspired you to write this book?
Jennifer Lambe (JL): This book was born out of my interest in understanding not only the Cuban Revolution but also the complex and contentious ways that participants, observers, and scholars have long interacted with it. Why, for example, have so many people come to feel an investment in Cuba, and why have the divides among Revolution watchers been, and remained, so fractious? The book tries to answer these questions by focusing on the interaction between political and popular culture, and specifically the ways in which knowledge about the Revolution was produced and disseminated. Each chapter features a different form of engagement—television, radio, mobility and immobility, work, and popular music and dance, among others—to bring together a heterogeneous group of historical actors around the questions, paradigms, and mediums that underwrote their experiences of coming to know the Revolution.
Q: What was the process of delving into archival material / sources like? What did you enjoy the most or what was the most challenging aspect?
JL: This book gave me the chance to use lots of different kinds of sources: the written press, posters and political cartoons, TV appearances, theater performances, scholarly texts, diaries, letters, music, and more. This was both what was most fun—and what proved most challenging—about the research process! At times, it meant trying to make archival apples and oranges speak to each other across different languages, political factions, and geographical divides. But it also led me to uncover unlikely connections: for example, the ways in which foreign journalists and revolutionary leaders, radio broadcasters and letter writers, or US solidarity activists and Cuban migrants, just to name a few, came to interact with each other and, in the process, to participate in the Revolution.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book (aside from gaining a more vast understanding of the 1959 Cuban Revolution)?
JL: There's a great deal that connects the early decades of the Cuban Revolution to our own moment, from battles over disinformation and TV politics to the politicization of popular culture. In some cases, there are direct lines of influence that can be drawn, but I think the more relevant touchstone is the shared experience of living in times of dramatic change and flux. How we learn to make sense of that change is a matter of political and personal significance. I hope the book at least does justice to the varied ways in which Cubans and their counterparts across the hemisphere did exactly that.